


Permanent Flowers

by Kileykao



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 14:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20816801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kileykao/pseuds/Kileykao
Summary: Jester asks for the first time on the deck of the Ball Eater





	Permanent Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Widojest Collab!!!
> 
> My Art Partner was Exalted-Dawn on Tumblr!!! Look at their lovely art, I love.

Jester offered to give tattoos to the group for the first time on the decks of The Ball Eater. She smiled with pride at her new skill, boasting about how she was  _ really _ good at doing it, and how Orly was a  _ really _ good teacher. 

She happily skipped across the deck, going from member to member of the Mighty Nein, asking them if they wanted a free sample of her new skill. One by one, Caleb watched everyone in their traveling group turn her down. She went to Caleb last, dropping down into his lap and pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“Would  _ you _ like a tattoo Cayleb?” she says with a soft smile and a sparkle in her eye as she wrapped her arms around his neck. The Zemnian man chuckles, his finger scratching at his bandage wrapped forearms before they settle around her waist. 

He hums, thinking about it for a moment, before he whispers into another kiss, “Maybe down the road, Liebling, I’m not sure that I’m ready for one yet.”

“If you do want one, you promise I can do it?”

“ _ Ja _ .”

*

A few weeks later, when they’re back in the Empire, Caleb takes his bandages off for the first time. Caleb tells them a part of his story, after Nott tells them hers. Caleb’s nails leave white trails across his skin, his blunt black-stained fingers digging deeper into the skin with each wrake across. Jester can tell that he isn’t happy— old memories clawing their way to the surface. She smiles at him, pressing against him so they’re thigh to thigh in the back of the cart. With each moment, Felderwin grows closer as Cad drives them back in the direction they came. As the town and people from Caleb’s past get closer, She whispers a question for just the two of them to hear. As she leans closer to him, she pushes his nails off of his skin and pushes back the fabric of his bandages between his fingers. 

“Would you like me to put art on your arms?”

He pauses for a moment, his fingers wrapping around the familiar texture of his bandages. Caleb thinks for a second, his face blank before he shakes the thoughts from his head and then smiles at her, softly in the way that he does when it’s just the two of them. He begins to rework the fabric around his arm and gently whispers back a soft dismissal of her offer. But Jester can read between the lines. Because with his arms free of marks, he has a reminder of the past, and he likes the reminder there, even if he does keep it hidden. 

She doesn’t believe his answer. 

*

The third time that she asks him is a few nights later, when Caleb, while on watch with Jester, removes his bandages for good. Slowly he unwraps them, rubbing lightly at the skin when it’s free, bending his fingers and looking down at the barely visible marks across his skin with a frown. 

She asks him the question once more, “Would you like me to put art on your arms?”

Caleb looks up and smiles again at her. It’s a sad smile, not the smile that she’s used to seeing on Caleb’s face when he looks at her. A part of her wants to ask what’s wrong. 

She doesn’t.

Instead, Caleb continues to smile his sad smile, and whispers to her, “I don’t want to hide anymore, Liebling. I think it will be good for me to show them.”

She frowns when only ten minutes later he starts digging his black-stained fingers across his arm, leaving thick white lines up and down his skin across the scars. 

She doesn’t ask him about it, just slowly reaches forward and pulls his hand into hers. Silent and grounding. 

*

The next time is months later. They’re all a fair bit stronger, and she’s a fair bit better at tattooing. She asks again, as they’re sitting in the war room, Caleb looking over a map of Wildmount as he leaves thick white lines up and down his arms. 

“Would you like art on your arms?”

This time Caleb freezes, looking up from the map spread across the table, then turning to look at Jester, then down at his arms where his nails are still mostly dug into the skin. He looks up again and Jester smiles, and he smiles back in the way that he always does. 

“Ja,” he says quietly, just above a whisper.

She smiles bigger and excitedly asks Caleb what kind of art he wants. 

The Zeminan is quiet for a moment, looking at his bare arms. The silence of the room washes over the two of them. 

“Flowers,” he says eventually, tracing the outline of something she can’t quite make out onto his skin with his finger. Before Jester could ask him what kind of flowers that he wants to lace along his arms, he whispers, “Cornflowers. Bright Blue Cornflowers, and Snowdrops.”

Jester blinks a couple of times and then smiles back, as she begins to babble hurriedly about what she’s going to draw on his arms. 

_ Cornflowers and Snowdrops _ , she thinks. She’s gonna make Caleb Widogast the prettiest flowers he’s ever seen. 

*

Jester takes her time planning out the flowers on pieces of parchment. For the next week, she fills paper after paper with a mix of the two blossoms in various patterns until finally, she goes to Caleb again with the completed design for his tattoos. 

As she set up her tools and hastily tells Caleb to take his shirt off. He’s not shy about removing his book holsters or the fabric covering him, and Jester isn’t shy about watching him slowly undress. 

The process starts, and she expects Caleb to flinch the first time the needle touches his skin. He doesn’t. He sits there still, his head tilted downwards. Jester would think that he was watching her, but his eyes are pressed tightly shut. 

Lines start to fill his skin as Jester works. As the outlines of flowers start to fill Caleb’s skin, she concentrates with her nose scrunched, because  _ it has to be perfect.  _ She wants it to be  _ perfect _ for Caleb. She continues to work carefully, moving along the pattern, her full attention on his forearm, and watching as the random black markings bloom into flowers. 

It isn’t until she’s been working for close to an hour that she finally looks up again and notices that Caleb is crying, silently letting the wetness fall down his cheeks. Jester puts down her tools and pushes herself towards Caleb, his face resting between her palms. 

A certain type of worry nestling its way into her chest. The certain type of worry that her mind has always labeled as worried about  _ Caleb _ and  _ Caleb-related things _ , much like she knows Caleb  _ constantly  _ thinks of her. This worry and panic is  _ different _ though. It’s not worrying about him not having enough paper or materials for spells. It’s a worry that she did something wrong, that Caleb doesn’t like her permanent painting, or that she accidentally had hurt him. 

“Are you  _ okay _ , Cayleb?” The older man blinks up at her and is silent for a moment, letting the coolness of Jester’s palms wash over him and her thumbs wiping away his tears. 

“Ja, Ja I’m fine,”

_ Clearly _ , Jester thinks to herself, a frown settling on her face.  _ Something is wrong, clearly.  _ She doesn’t know  _ what _ , though. 

“Cayleb?” she asks again, looking down at his arm half-filled with pretty lines in the shape of flowers that she plans to fill with pretty colors, “Do you not like it?” Her voice is small, panicked. She worked hard, wanting to make  _ sure _ that Caleb would like it— no _ , love it,  _ she wants him to  _ love _ it. 

The redhead lets out a wet laugh, shaking his head from between her palms whispering, “Oh Liebling, oh  _ Liebling _ I love it.”

“Then why are you crying, Cayleb?”

Caleb smiles a sad smile, his other arm, still free of flowers, coming up and resting on her hand. “Sometimes,” he says, taking a deep breath, “It’s easier to cry than it is to smile, Blueberry,”

Jester frowns, “Do you  _ like _ it?” Her hands drop to Caleb’s arm, not touching the freshly minted tattoos, but gently hovering over the outlines of flowers. 

  
Caleb smiles this time — a proper  _ Caleb Widogast _ smile, Jester realizes with relief — and leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, “It’s  _ perfect _ , Liebling.”


End file.
